


okay I believe you, but my tommy gun don’t

by QuietlyImplode



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clintasha - Freeform, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Past Child Abuse, Red Room (Marvel), Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:53:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29938551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietlyImplode/pseuds/QuietlyImplode
Summary: Natasha finds out something new about her past, that should have remained buried.“Natasha. Stop!” Clint yells. The loudness of his voice halts her movement, but she doesn’t turn around.“Tell me how to make it better?”Natasha looks back at him, a sadness in her eyes that he can’t place.“You can’t.” She says, and runs.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30





	okay I believe you, but my tommy gun don’t

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed warnings. Nothing graphic but the implications are there and verbalised. Tumblr prompt asking _"tell me how to make it better” - But a little bit romantic?_ and gosh did I not hit this. This is not romantic, it’s angsty and has the red room; but it does have Clint and Natasha taking care of each other; sooo there’s that.
> 
> Title is from a song of the same name by Brand New.

“Natasha. Stop!” Clint yells. The loudness of his voice halts her movement, but she doesn’t turn around. “Tell me how to make it better?” 

Natasha looks back at him, a sadness in her eyes that he can’t place.

“You can’t.” She says, and runs.  
.

Three days earlier. 

Monday.

“He’s dead.” Maria deadpans passing the dossier across to Clint who glances over it, and passes it across to Natasha.

“Who did it?” He asks, not surprised at the face of the deceased. 

“Unknown. But the death of the head of the SVR, is something we should be concerned with.”

Natasha stops on the suspects page, and Clint can’t help but notice the look of recognition pass across her face. 

“Yevgeni Primakov would not be an easy man to kill.” She states, and hands the file back to Maria. “What do you want us to do about it?”

Maria hands her another file, “Find out who did it.”

Clint smiles. “A trip?” 

Natasha hands him the file and his smile drops.

“To Romania?” The two women smile at his disappointment. 

“Yeah, that’s where he was killed.” 

Clint pouts. 

“Can someone else do it?”

Natasha rolls her eyes. 

Tuesday.

They arrive in Romania and Clint can’t stop complaining. It’s too cold. The plane food is shit. He hit his head on the baggage bin. It’s never ending, and grates on Natasha’s patience. 

They head immediately to the scene of Yevgeni’s death, and Clint moans that they can’t even stop at the hotel before working. 

It makes Natasha snap, and she ends up smacking him on the upside of the head before giving him a look. He shuts up and they get to work.  
.

They create a timeline of his death and he flashes the suspect list at her. 

“Which one do you know?” He asks.

Surprise plays across her face, “how’d you..?” 

Clint smirks. “I always know.”

“Sergey Naryshkin.” She says. “He was a trainer.” 

Clint’s face drops. “Oh.”

Natasha nods. “Yeah. ‘Oh’ is right.”  
.

Clint orders take away, and she smiles, it’s like an apology for being annoying and grating. She kisses him deeply and they head to bed early, letting off steam in the way they both find cathartic. 

Wednesday.

They come up with empty leads, and they both know, they’re going to have to talk to Sergey. Clint is adamant they shouldn’t be the ones, and even goes so far as to ring Fury to tell him as such. 

Fury agrees, but in the same breath tells them that no-one else can do it, they’re run thin and Natasha and Clint are already there.  
.

They’re running surveillance and know Naryshkin’s here to meet with the head of the SBU, the Ukrainian secret service. They’re going to have to meet with him. Fury sets it up, quickly and quietly, 8pm at the Hilton in the middle of Bucharest.  
.

Clint is adamant that he does the actual meet, but Natasha reasons that he’s more likely to let his guard down with her. Besides, he’s the better sniper shot.  
He helps her dress. Placing kisses on her wrists as he joins the clasp on the bracelet, kisses on her neck following her neck line. She returns in kind and it’s a slow process getting ready. By the end they’re both flushed and red faced, but ready to take on anything.  
.

Clint opens comms with Fury and Maria. If he has killed Yevgeni, they won’t be able to do anything about it, but at least they’ll have more intel. And being in the business of intel, it’s always good to have ‘friends’ in low places or at the very least, blackmail fodder. Natasha is waiting, drink in hand, at the outdoor bar, and Clint watches through a sniper scope as Naryshkin walks through the door. 

He spots Natasha almost immediately as he moves to the deck. Clint doesn’t know if it’s his imagination but he feels he sees a shudder run over Natasha as she stands to greet him.

“Natalia.” He says, “Твой отец должен очень горидиться женщиной, которой ты выросла.”

Clint narrows his eyes. He catches the words “grown up” and “your father” and “proud” and immediately he feels that this is a bad idea. There’s going to be ramifications from this meeting and not in a business sense. 

“Are you getting this?” He asks, switching comms to Fury and Maria.

They confirm they are, and he switches back to Natasha’s earpiece. 

He hears her placate him in Russian and then reminds him she speaks in English now. 

“Ahh yes,” the man says, and calls the waitress over and orders a drink in clumsy Romanian. 

“What is it you want, Natalia? To reminisce?” 

Natasha smiles and shakes her head. 

“Did you kill Yevgeni?”

The man’s pale face contorts into a smile.  
“You want something from me, then I want something from you.”

Natasha raises her eyebrows, and tilts her head. 

“Our pasts, are what you may call… Intertwined. Would you say?” 

Natasha doesn’t respond but silence is enough to invite the man to continue. 

“After your, аборта..” he pauses for effect and watches as Natasha’s face goes white. He hums, and with a smirk, continues, “we saw to it that it would never happen again, to you, to any of you…” 

The word doesn’t translate in Clint’s head. He doesn’t ask though, he wants to see where this goes. His finger pulses the trigger, tapping it and making his breathing slow, just like Natasha has. 

“If the man that you say I killed, was setting up another Red Room, would I be wrong or right in killing him?” 

Natasha hasn’t moved.

Clint stops breathing.

He can see her brain working fast, the toss of the coin to kill him, to run and hide, to retort. The implication of another Red Room, her truest greatest fear, alongside being recaptured by her old handlers. He doesn’t know what to do. 

She closes her eyes for the briefest second, and then smiles at the man. Clint wants to shoot him then and there. He sees what this costs her. 

“You are just in your actions. I trust you wouldn’t be so stupid as to do the same?” 

The man’s drink comes and he sips it slowly. 

“I know I am just in my actions. We are done here, Natalia. Tell your hound dog to take his finger off the trigger. If anything happens to me, remember that the actions of the past have lasting implications on the actions of the future. You of anyone should know this. As long as I live, it will stay buried.”

Natasha stands. Leaves the way the man came in as the a grinch like smile plays across his face. He looks directly at Clint and waves. Signs in Russian Sign Language, _hello, I see you._

Clint breathes hard. 

_Russians._

He packs the rifle and scopes and chases after her.  
She’s further away then he thought and he has to run to catch up to her.

“Natasha. Stop!” Clint yells. The loudness of his voice halts her movement, but she doesn’t turn around. 

“Tell me how to make it better?” 

Natasha looks back at him, a sadness in her eyes that he can’t place.

“You can’t.” She says, and runs.  
.

Fury calls him, asks him where Natasha is.  
“Is it true?” He asks, “They gave Natasha an abortion, before sterilization?”

Fury tells him that he doesn’t know, to come home, and that they’ve got the week off. 

Trauma tax, he thinks to himself. This is fucked.

He heads to the exfil point and hopes she’s there.  
.

Exfil is at a hotel near the Airport Baneasa, and whilst they flew commercial to get here, Fury’s sent a jet to get them back. Clint can’t decide if it’s because he feels guilty for sending Natasha in, or pity at secrets that've been revealed, secrets he’s not even entirely sure that Natasha knew. 

He arrives at the hotel and checks in. They’re in room 47, on the fourth floor. He waits. It’s now 9pm. He texts her. He tries calling her. It rings out.  
.

At 12am he tries calling her again. Her phone’s turned off.  
.

By 2am he’s pacing. He tries again. Phones still off.  
.

At 4am, he decides that if she’s not here by 8am, he’s going out looking for her.  
.

He hears the door at 7.30am and he starts breathing again. He opens it and lets her in.

“What times the flight?” She asks, as though nothing has happened. Like he hasn’t just had conniptions the whole night. 

“Did you know?” He retorts, knowing it’s not a fair ask, but he wants to know. 

“No.” 

She heads to his backpack, and rummages to find her pants and hoodie. She strips in front of him, and gets changed. 

“No.” She repeats. 

“Flights at 10.” He gives her. 

She sits on the edge of the bed, and clasps her hands together. 

He sits next to her. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

She leans into him, just enough for pressure to register.  
“No.” She says again.

He holds his hand out on his knee, offering it to her.  
“I’m sorry.” He says.

“Just when I think I know everything, there’s something else that my brain has blocked. There’s something new to knock me back.”  
“I was 14. What did I know?” She says almost to herself.  
She rests her head on his shoulder and takes his offered hand.

He squeezes it four times in a pattern. She squeezes, repeating it back to him.  
.

They arrive stateside and head straight to the beach. A week off. She smiles at the luxury. Clint cooks her dinner, her favourite meal of lasagne. She turns on the Tv and they continue to binge watch the shows they were watching before they left for Romania, and she grabs her blanket and snuggles into him.

They’ve dealt with more, they can deal with this.  
She has confidence in herself, that although this is a big revelation, it’s not anything that changes her now. 

What’s past is past, and she’s confident that Naryshkin won’t start another program, which is something.  
.  
The nightmares come. Flashbacks. Memories. It’s painful. She drags herself out of bed and out the door, walking to the beach across the road.

Clint is behind her, grasping her hand, leading her safely.  
They sit together and watch the waves. 

“I love you,” Clint says, quietly.

“I love you too,” Natasha replies, taking his hand and kissing it gently.  
.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos are love.


End file.
